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place.’
    I furrowed my brow and looked back at the sketch map and the street names.
    â€˜You know the place?’
    â€˜No.’ I looked up. ‘You are certain of this location?’
    â€˜Yes. But you must ask for something particular.’
    â€˜Particular?’
    â€˜You must ask for the “darkest little room”. That is the place you will find the girl.’
    â€˜How long will you stay in Saigon?’
    â€˜Two more days. At a hotel near the cathedral. I do not remember the name.’
    â€˜Perhaps I’ll go back to the bar with you?’
    He shook his head.
    â€˜I cannot go back to that place. The manager will kill me. And I will not talk to the police. If you go to the police I can have nothing to do with it. I cannot afford to. I am married. I have not long started at my job. But you can help her. There is something terrible going on there at that place. Something godless and beyond everything.’
    â€˜I’ll look into it. But give me a phone number.’
    â€˜I don’t have one in this country. Give me yours.’
    I wrote it down on the back of a card.
    Hönicke stood up. The panic in his eyes had eased a little. He left without shaking my hand. I folded his map into my pocket and ordered another beer and leant back on the wall and watched him disappear into the river of people passing on the street, passing quicker now in the cool breeze of an approaching storm. Then there was wind. The wind rattled the windows of the cafe and blew flags and canvas awnings and the clothes hanging from tube house balconies and the rain came.
    I could not investigate anything that night as I had promised to meet a director to check English copy for the Vietnamese Government tourist agency. I walked to the 15th of May School and found Peter Pan. I took him out of class and gave him 50 000đ to buy chewing gum to sell at Club 49 that night.
    â€˜If they don’t let you in then take this,’ I held a 200 000đ note up separately, ‘and grease the man out front. If they still won’t let you in then just sit across the road and watch the door. Tonight you are watching for a girl who has been beaten. Marks on her ankles, shoulders or back.’
    â€˜Understand?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    I took out an extra 50 000đ
    â€˜And this is for you.’
    He grinned up at me.
    â€˜Now back to class!’
    I was still at the agency when I got a call from a number I did not recognise.
    â€˜Mr Joe?’
    â€˜Peter Pan?’
    He had my number to give to any girls who resembled the girl of my Thanh Hoa photograph.
    â€˜But where did you get a phone?’
    â€˜Friend give me.’
    I smiled. I hoped it was not stolen.
    â€˜Did you get into the Club?’
    â€˜Easy.’
    The middle-aged director was paying me by the hour and he eyed me and then looked down at his brochure copy.
    â€˜And did you find what I asked for?’
    â€˜No girl like you say. No evil or bad trouble.’
    â€˜Ok. Goodnight, Peter–’
    â€˜Wait, Mr Joe!’
    â€˜What is it?’
    â€˜I find other.’
    â€˜Other what?’
    â€˜I find girl like same you look for.’
    â€˜Truly?’
    â€˜Yeah, yeah. Nói thật! ‘This one really her I think.’
    â€˜Of course. Thank you, Peter.’
    â€˜You don’t want meet with her?’
    â€˜Yes, I want.’ Why not? I looked up again at the scowling director and nodded and put my hand up to say I was coming. ‘I’ll talk with you tomorrow, Peter.’

8
    The next day Minh Quy and I sat on an upper deck of his home in District Ten looking across the glinting aerials, water cisterns and roof-top gardens of the tube houses. I put Hönicke’s map onto the table. Minh Quy tilted his head and blew smoke out of the corner of his mouth.
    â€˜Club 49. A billiard room much like any other. Black doors. Pretty girls. Touts out front and muscle behind the